Colombian mass graves discovered

[Judi Lynn]

Source: BBC News

Colombian mass graves discovered
Page last updated at 01:26 GMT, Saturday, 26 September 2009 02:26 UK

Two mass graves connected to Colombia's decades-long internal conflict have been found, officials say.

They say one grave, containing the bodies of 17 peasants, was discovered in a ranch in the north-west belonging to a late far-right militia leader.

The armed forces chief announced the discovery of a second mass grave, which he said held the remains of 16 left-wing Farc guerrillas, in the south.

The Farc have been fighting the Colombian government since the 1960s.

The peasants' bodies were found on a ranch that belonged to paramilitary leader Carlos Castano, who was killed in 2004.





Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8276038.stm

[Judi Lynn]

1. COLOMBIA: Two mass graves discovered, bodies include nephew of FARC leader

COLOMBIA: Two mass graves discovered, bodies include nephew of FARC leader
September 26, 8:36 AM

Colombian officials have announced the discovery of two mass graves related to the country’s 61 year-old civil war. The graves are estimated to be about 10-12 years old, and were dug by the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (the AUC), a former umbrella group for paramilitaries.

BBC News reported that one grave, found in northwest Colombia, contained the bodies of 17 peasants. It was found on a ranch belonging to a slain AUC leader, Carlos Castaño. According to Associated Press reports, the peasants were believed to have been killed by men under the command of Jesus Ignacio Roldan, alias "Monoleche," a Castaño lieutenant who later participated in his 2004 murder.

The other grave was discovered near La Uribe, a traditional stronghold of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombian General Freddy Padilla announced. He added that FARC fighters had died in fighting in July, and the bodies recovered included that of a nephew of senior FARC commander Jorge Briceño, alias “Mono Jojoy.”

The FARC, a designated terrorist group, has been fighting a guerrilla insurgency against the Colombian government since its inception in 1964.

The AUC was formed in 1997 as an umbrella group for dozens of paramilitary organizations that existed to protect various drug lords’ territory and operations from attacks by leftist groups like the FARC. Contrary to popular belief, the AUC is responsible for the majority of drug-related killings in Colombia.

The AUC was also designated as a terrorist group in 2001, and entered into disarmament talks with the Colombian government in 2003. The group no longer exists in this form, but many of its paramilitary members have joined other criminal organizations.

http://www.examiner.com/x-17196-South-America-Policy-Examiner~y2009m9d26-COLOMBIA-Two-mass-graves-discovered-bodies-include-nephew-of-FARC-leader

[Judi Lynn]

2. Colombia finds 2 mass graves of peasants, rebels

Colombia finds 2 mass graves of peasants, rebels
By LIBARDO CARDONA (AP) – 19 hours ago

BOGOTA — The chief prosecutor's office said Friday it has unearthed the remains of 17 peasants tortured and killed at a ranch that belonged to the since-slain, far-right militia leader Carlos Castano in Colombia's northwest.

In the southern jungles, meanwhile, the Colombian military said it had discovered a mass grave holding 16 rebels believed killed in combat, including a nephew of a top guerrilla commander.

The peasants were believed slain 10 to 12 years ago by men under the command of Jesus Ignacio Roldan, alias "Monoleche," a Castano lieutenant who later participated in the 2004 murder of the right-wing militia leader, the prosecutor's office said in a statement. Castano was apparently killed because he was upset that other militia warlords had turned his anti-guerrilla movement into regional drug-trafficking criminal mafias and they were afraid he would betray them to U.S. drug agents.

All the bodies found at the "La 35" ranch in the Uraba banana-growing region "were dismembered and showed signs of torture," the statement said.

Nibaldo Jimenez, exhumations coordinator in the prosecutor's office for victims of the right-wing paramilitaries, told The Associated Press that his unit has unearthed the remains of 2,570 people since the militias began demobilizing in 2005 under a peace pact with the government. The militias often colluded with members of Colombia's armed forces in a dirty war targeting suspected leftist rebel sympathizers. Prosecutors say demobilized paramilitaries have confessed to more than 25,000 killings.

More:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gOhwy0Gq9qTnZuoddyvddED5eO1wD9AUKKFG0

[ck4829]

3. It's sad that even though this mass grave was found in a ranch that belonged to an AUC leader...

They still try to make this story about FARC.

I'm willing to bet that most of the bodies in that mass grave belonged to non-combatants.

[Truthway]

4. responsible

we sold the guns...

[bertman]

5. At least the United States under President Obama's leadership is siding with the WINNERS

in Columbia. With those new U.S. bases we'll be able to help the right-wingers dig even more mass graves. Sorta like an economic mini-stimulus plan: the U.S. gives money to the Bolivian military who gives it to the right-wing paramilitaries who give it to the peasants with shovels who dig the graves.

[Judi Lynn]

6. A dark underbelly of mass graves and electoral fraud

A dark underbelly of mass graves and electoral fraud
Congress is questioning a Latin American policy that has left George Bush with a best friend who is a major embarrassment
Isabel Hilton The Guardian, Thursday 8 March 2007

~snip~
Uribe didn't invent Colombia's problems - it has endured 40 years of civil war and narcotics flourished long before he became president in 2002. But Uribe, who changed the constitution to permit his own re-election last year, has devised a "peace" plan that has opened the door to a future incorporation of amnestied narco-paramilitary groups into Colombian politics, who have close ties with Uribe's own political machine. As Massachusetts congressman Jim McGovern put it: "President Uribe's main step towards 'peace' has been a likely deal with the paramilitaries that will allow them to pay brief sentences in luxurious jails despite having massacred thousands of innocent people, while avoiding extradition despite having sent tons of drugs to my country."

The paramilitary forces were formed in the 1980s to fight the leftist guerrillas. They soon became as notorious for massacres and narcotics; they robbed Colombia's peasants of millions of acres of land, creating 3 million internally displaced victims. Since their rise in Antioquia, the province where Uribe was governor, the paramilitary have been suspected of collaboration with state security forces. The president denies that they enjoyed political protection and claims amnesty is open to all.

Some 31,000 paramilitary fighters have accepted Uribe's demobilisation programme, gaining virtual immunity for past crimes. The president claims increased security and a dramatic drop in human rights abuse, but human rights organisations disagree and the recent discovery of mass graves attests to a four-year rise in disappearances. Nevertheless, Uribe's Colombia has won praise from Whitehall to Washington and Colombia's urban middle classes gave him an easy re-election last year.

But now, stimulated by the determination of Colombia's supreme court to investigate the country's dark underbelly, evidence of collaboration between paramilitary death squads and the administrative security department (DAS), the president's intelligence service, has seen key members of Uribe's political apparatus resign, disgraced or placed under arrest. An emboldened Colombian press is now demanding to know what the president knew.

Uribe's troubles began last year when a computer was seized from a paramilitary leader known as "Jorge 40". On it were the names of politicians who apparently collaborated with Jorge 40 to intimidate voters, seize land and kidnap or kill trade unionists and political rivals. Jorge 40 is the nom de guerre of Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, leader of the Northern Bloc of the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), a paramilitary umbrella group set up in 1997 and categorised by the US as a terrorist organisation. Tovar controlled drug trafficking on the eastern half of Colombia's Caribbean coast. Since then, eight pro-Uribe congressmen have been arrested and the foreign minister has been forced to resign.

But the most dangerous scandal for Uribe comes from the arrest of Jorge Noguera, his former campaign manager and, from 2002 to 2005, head of the DAS. Former DAS colleagues have told investigators of Noguera's close collaboration with Jorge 40 - which included lending him Uribe's personal armoured vehicle - and with other paramilitary leaders. The accusations include an assassination plot against Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, the murder of political opponents, electoral fraud, doctoring police and judicial records to erase paramilitary cases. Noguera worked directly to Uribe and when the investigations began, the president appointed him consul in Milan. The supreme court has forced his return.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/mar/08/comment.usa

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Why an EU free trade deal with Colombia would be bad for human rights
26 September 2009 at 16:11 by TUC guest bloggers

The EU is negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA) with Colombia, the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist. Signing that deal would hand the Colombian Government a propaganda coup, suggesting that its human rights record was on the right track. It isn't.

Last year, 25% more trade unionists were killed than in 2008, just for being trade unionists. Their killers get away with it, time and time again, because the Colombian Government continues to demonise its opponents – giving the paramilitaries license to kill, and then fails to investigate, prosecute or punish.

http://blogs.amnesty.org.uk/blogs_entry.asp?eid=3813

[Warren Stupidity]

7. Oh that doesn't matter, just peasants and leftists.

We have more important poutrage over Chavez to concern ourselves with. He's a dictator!

[fascisthunter]

8. don't forget those golf courses

[Judi Lynn]

10. Not to mention the curtailing of beer trucks in the poor neighborhoods, and no liquor sales

on election days until after the poles close, and god forbid, the raising of taxes on Scotch.

[kevsters]

9. Hannity will not condemn the bombing of children

I am sorry this is off topic, but this video is outrageous. When asked by two G20 protesters to condemn the bombing of innocent children, Sean Hannity would not. Must see this video. Make it go viral.

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=3001

[ro1942]

11. Where is fox on this story

We have a terrible gov.

[bitchkitty]

12. I"m more interested in where our right wing posters have gone.

They're all over a thread if it has anything to do with Chavez, but this....

I guess it's okay with them for innocent peasants to be slaughtered in the name of US interests?

[EFerrari]

17. Yeah, where are all the Uribe loyalists? I can't have them ALL on ignore.

lol

[Judi Lynn]

13. A mass grave for 105 uncovered in 2007: Mass graves found in southern Colombia

Mass graves found in southern Colombia
From correspondents in Bogota
May 06, 2007 03:45am

INVESTIGATORS have uncovered mass graves containing the bodies of more than 100 people believed to be victims of right-wing militias in southern Colombia.

Judicial authorities and police found the graves in the southern district of Putumayo near the borders of Ecuador and Peru, Interior Minister Carlos Holguin told the Caracol radio station, saying he was "horrified'' at the find.

Public prosecutor Mario Iguaran said there were Ecuadorans among the 105 dead in the series of 65 graves.

A source in the prosecutor's office earlier told AFP that most of those found were local peasants.

He said the discovery was made possible by a law on the demobilisation of paramilitary fighters in the country, allowing for lighter sentences in return for confessions and compensation for victims, even over the worst crimes.

Right-wing paramilitary groups, organised as private armies in the 1980s to protect properties from leftist guerrillas, are accused of numerous massacres of civilians suspected of leftist sympathies.

Hundreds of other corpses have been unearthed in mass graves elsewhere in the country. The largest umbrella group representing paramilitaries, the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, is regarded by the United States as a terrorist organisation.

It officially demobilised the last of its 30,000 fighters in April in a deal that guaranteed prison terms of no more than eight years.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21680553-1702,00.html

[troubledamerican]

14. But Colombia is a U.S. ally and Hugo Chavez (no mass graves) is our enemy.

[Brother Buzz]

15. The Caracazo produced mass graves in Venezuela

The Caracazo or sacudón is the name given to the wave of protests, riots and looting that occurred on 27 February 1989 in the Venezuelan capital Caracas and surrounding towns. The riots — the worst in Venezuelan history — resulted in a death toll of anywhere between 275 and 3,000 deaths, mostly at the hands of security forces.

The initial official pronouncements said 276 people had died; however, the subsequent discovery that the government had buried civilians in mass graves and not counted those deaths raised the estimates. Unofficial estimates of the death toll by pro-government site Hands off Venezuela go as high as 3000.

Oh wait, Hugo was fighting against the security forces at the time. Hugo Chávez, an organiser of one of the coups, was found guilty of sedition and incarcerated. However, he was subsequently pardoned by Pérez's successor, Rafael Caldera, and went on to be elected president after him.

[troubledamerican]

16. Misleading: Chavez was intended as a corpse in one of those mass graves

Chavez has no mass graves. You missed the point.

[EFerrari]

18. Brother Buzz noted that Chavez was working against the security forces,

not with them.

[Judi Lynn]

19. The man who called for the massacre of Venezuelans, Carlos Andres Perez, has called for Chavez

to be shot down in the streets "like a dog" in the recent past. He is still beloved by the Venezuelan oligarchy, although he lives in his homes in Colombia, New York, and Miami and doesn't seem to feel at home in Venezuela any longer.

He's currently married to Celia Matos, his former mistress in Venezuela when he was the President. She had helped him stash his money in various American banks, before he was impeached for massive corruption, and embezzlement.

http://doc.noticias24.com.nyud.net:8090/0904/capban.jpg

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com.nyud.net:8090/images/2004/07/cap.jpg

http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/00nc0Pm2kd7hr/610x.jpg

Cecilia Matos, wife of Venezuela's former President Carlos
Andres Perez, holds up a family picture in her Miami condo, Tuesday, June 17, 2008.

[Brother Buzz]

20. There is nothing misleading in my post and I certainly did not miss the point

Perhaps your reading comprehension skills need some polishing. :shrug:

[troubledamerican]

21. Nope. It was misleading.

I was comparing Uribe to Chavez, and you added -- correctly but off-topic -- that Venezuela has mass graves.

Casual readers of this thread who know nothing about Caracazo will simply read your subthread Subject Line as a rebuttal which implies that Hugo Chavez has mass-graves.

I do not retract.

[Brother Buzz]

22. Pfft

Casual readers become informed readers at DU because they don't settle for subject line dialog.